Updated at 5:41 a.m. ET: MOSCOW -- Russia's presidential election was clearly skewed in favor of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, international vote monitors said in a report on Monday.

"There was no real competition and abuse of government resources ensured that the ultimate winner of the election was never in doubt," Tonino Picula, one of the vote monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe, said in a statement.

Monitors cited "serious problems" with the vote and called for alleged electoral violations in Sunday's election to be thoroughly investigated.

Golos, Russia's leading independent elections watchdog, earlier said it had registered at least 3,100 reports of violations nationwide.Advertise | AdChoices

Golos cited received numerous reports of "carousel voting," in which busloads of voters are driven around to cast ballots multiple times.

The Central Elections Commission said Putin got more than 63 percent of the nationwide vote. However, Golos said that incomplete reports from its observers of individual polling station counts indicate Putin hovered perilously close to the 50-percent mark needed for a first-round victory.

Accounts of extensive vote-rigging looked set to strengthen the resolve of opposition forces whose unprecedented protests in recent months have posed the first serious challenge to Putin's heavy-handed rule.

Anti-Putin activists pay high price

Putin said the presidential election had prevented Russia from falling into the hands of enemies. Complaining of widespread fraud, his opponents said they would rally near the Kremlin on Monday night.

His eyes brimming with tears, the former KGB spy defiantly proclaimed to a sea of supporters that they had triumphed over opponents intent on "destroying Russia's statehood and usurping power."

Putin's win was never in doubt as many across the vast country still see him as a guarantor of stability and the defender of a strong Russia against a hostile world, an image he has carefully cultivated during 12 years in power.

'Honest struggle'Putin claimed victory Sunday night when fewer than a quarter of the votes had been counted. He spoke to a rally just outside the Kremlin walls of tens of thousands of supporters, many of them government workers or employees of state-owned companies who had been ordered to attend.

"I promised that we would win and we have won!" Putin shouted to the flag-waving crowd. "We have won in an open and honest struggle."

He ended his speech with the triumphant declaration: "Glory to Russia!"

Putin was president from 2000 until 2008, before moving into the prime minister's office due to term limits.

Putin, 59, is on collision course with the mainly middle-class protesters who have staged rallies in the capital and other big cities since since December.

CorruptionThe wave of protests began after a parliamentary election in which observers produced evidence of widespread vote fraud. Protest rallies in Moscow drew tens of thousands in the largest outburst of public anger in post-Soviet Russia, demonstrating growing exasperation with the pervasive corruption and tight controls over political life under Putin.

The protest organizers, who see Putin as an autocratic leader whose return to power will stymie hope of economic and political reforms, said their demonstrations would now grow.

Russia's presidential election takes place on Sunday, Mar. 4. Rock Center Correspondent Harry Smith journeyed to Moscow where he met blogger Alexei Navalny, a vocal opponent of Vladimir Putin and his party United Russia. Navalny has galvanized protesters through social media and uses his website to expose alleged political corruption. The prospect of Putin returning to the presidency has generated protests in Russia not seen since the fall of Communism. The surging public outrage has left some wondering if a movement is afoot in Russia similar to that of last year's Arab Spring.

"He is forcing things to breaking point. He is declaring war on us. As a result the base of aversion to him is growing," said journalist Sergei Parkhomenko, one of the leaders of the opposition protest movement.Advertise | AdChoices

"These elections are not free. ... That's why we'll have protests (Monday)," said Mikhail Kasyanov, who was Putin's first prime minister before going into opposition. "We will not recognize the president as legitimate."

Prokhorov, the owner of the NBA's New Jersey Nets, won plaudits for his campaign. He said on Channel One television after the vote that his observers had been kept away from some polling stations and were beaten on two occasions.

Zyuganov said his party would not recognize the result and called the election "illegitimate, dishonest and not transparent".

Despite the opposition, mainly among well-educated and relatively well-off young professionals, Putin's support remains high in the provinces and his victory had not been in doubt.

Putin got more than 90 percent of the vote in several Caucasus provinces, including 99.8 percent in Chechnya.

Economic boomThe initial challenge for the man credited by many Russians with rebuilding the country's image and overseeing an economic boom in his first presidency, had been to win more than half the votes on Sunday and avoid a second-round runoff.

His clear victory will enable him to portray his return to the presidency as a strong sign of public support against the protesters, whom he has portrayed as a destabilizing minority and pawns of foreign governments.

But the mood has shifted in the country of 143 million and the urban protest movement portrays him as an obstacle to change and the guardian of a corrupt system of power.

Putin, who will be inaugurated in May, is likely to revert to the fighting talk against the West that was the hallmark of his first presidency and his election campaign.

The West can expect Putin to continue the tough policies he has pursued even as prime minister, including opposing U.S. plans to build a missile shield in Europe and resisting international military intervention in Syria.

"Putin is a brave and persistent man who can resist the U.S. and EU pressure," said Anastasia Lushnikova, a 20-year-old student who voted for Putin in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don.Advertise | AdChoices

There's not so much fraud as much as abuse of administration resource, plus semi-feudal regions (like Chechnya, Tatarstan, Dagestan) giving 90% vote results simply because they vote for the Czar, not for a president. Even without fraudlent additions to the vote Putin would still get ca. 50%, for sure, since putinist propaganda has been very efficient (1) and the life level has improved because of the oil and gas production rising in quantity together with the price thereof (2).

It is much more a sad statement to the state of society. Not that I consider bourgeois elections a perfect mechanism, but even they suck too much in Russia.

Out of the four "opponents", only the communist one was even brave enough to say that the election was bullshit, heh. I guess that tells how much of a real opposition the other three clowns pose. Not that the current CPRF leader is worth much, sadly.

If Comrade Putin puts in his reservation for an electoral victory months in advance and it gets delivered to him, well, then obviously the system's working just fine of course. Just the way it was rigged.

It's not even the lack of democracy so much. China doesn't have democracy but they do appear to have devised a system that ensures periodic replacement of the ruling elite. Putin seems to have more personal influence than any leader since Stalin.Now with 6 year presidential term he looks set to rule Russia for 12 more years which is likely to lead to yet another ossification of the elite similar to one experienced under Brezhnev.

Putin is a popular figure. But why mistake popularity for real influence? Putin has personal charisma (though it's certainly wearing off), but in terms of power, he is but a figurehead of the class forces behind him, that being the oligarchy. Putin is ultraliberal in economic matters (and recently Russia entered the WTO), so I doubt anyone - either in the Russian or in the Western elite - would experience huge problems with Putin.

On the contrary, the US loves Putin, disregarding the batshit crazy Republican propaganda about the Zombie Russian Bears invading Alaska and such. Putin has done a great deal to reduce the Russian military threat capacity (while at the same time concentrating the Russian military for local police actions, a post-Soviet imperialism).

Putin has personal charisma (though it's certainly wearing off), but in terms of power, he is but a figurehead of the class forces behind him, that being the oligarchy.

I think current events disprove that pretty clearly. If he was just a figurehead there would be no reason for the oligarchy to bring him back. Much more sense to keep switching the presidents as quickly as possible to stop any one president from accumulating too much power and influence. The fact that Putin was not only able to return to presidency but expand the presidential term limit to six years means that while he is not omnipotent is certainly the single most powerful man in Russia.

I am pretty sure that Stas did not mean "Putin is a powerless flunky controlled by marionette masters", but instead more like "Putin is now a member of the oligarch class and thus does not care about the common people, but only class interests".

I for one think Putin is pretty much a standard KGB guy - always out for his own interest and power. The oligarchs just are the easiest way to get both (provided they are his oligarchs, of course - see yukos).

Putin has personal charisma (though it's certainly wearing off), but in terms of power, he is but a figurehead of the class forces behind him, that being the oligarchy.

I think current events disprove that pretty clearly. If he was just a figurehead there would be no reason for the oligarchy to bring him back. Much more sense to keep switching the presidents as quickly as possible to stop any one president from accumulating too much power and influence. The fact that Putin was not only able to return to presidency but expand the presidential term limit to six years means that while he is not omnipotent is certainly the single most powerful man in Russia.

There's a whole lot of reasons. Putin is a part of their class. He is widely popular, and they conveyed a very simplistic propaganda message (Putin = stability), so Russian citizens from the province vote Putin. The larger cities were the center of the anti-Putin vote, but to pacify them, they created Prokhorov's grand entree into politics. Provincials' vote matters more, though.

Remarkably, of all the candidates, Putin did not have a personal program. Instead he posted the "United Russia" program. The Putin system relies on a merger of the oligarch-bureaucrat class and a national leader figure. They can't just replace their most popular representative, but neither can Putin operate and rule alone. His "team", if one so desires, composed of extremely corrupt officials and businessmen, wields a great deal of influence on everything that happens in Russia.

The idea that they need to change presidents doesn't really pass the rationality test. Why change Putin for someone else if Putin is popular and also without fail executes pro-oligarch policies? I mean, why on Earth would they rise against a stable system? That's like saying the Chilean and American oligarchs and officials controlling businesses in Pinochet's Chile "needed" to swap Pinochet. They didn't need him to be replaced, quite the contrary.

The idea that they need to change presidents doesn't really pass the rationality test. Why change Putin for someone else if Putin is popular and also without fail executes pro-oligarch policies? I mean, why on Earth would they rise against a stable system? That's like saying the Chilean and American oligarchs and officials controlling businesses in Pinochet's Chile "needed" to swap Pinochet. They didn't need him to be replaced, quite the contrary.

This is not analogous. Putin was out of presidency and the system did not collapse. Why let Putin back to the center of power if it kept running under Medvedev? Unless the oligarch simply had no choice. Because he is popular? That in and of itself is a major leverage for Putin disregarding any other. Not to mention that many oligarchs were imprisoned or had to flee Russia not the least of which is Berezovsky. If there was an oligarch who could control Putin he was it, and he had to hightail it to UK.Obviously Putin is not all powerful as was no leader in history. But any particular oligarch has far more to fear from Putin than vice versa.

The idea that they need to change presidents doesn't really pass the rationality test. Why change Putin for someone else if Putin is popular and also without fail executes pro-oligarch policies? I mean, why on Earth would they rise against a stable system? That's like saying the Chilean and American oligarchs and officials controlling businesses in Pinochet's Chile "needed" to swap Pinochet. They didn't need him to be replaced, quite the contrary.

This is not analogous. Putin was out of presidency and the system did not collapse.

Because the Putin system is more robust than that of Pinochet. Putin's system is an intermediate system between democracy and full-blown dictatorship, and thus more stable politically. It keeps a pleiade of think-alikes at the helm, ready to change one another when needed, actually. It plans for contingencies and it is capable of evolutionary development, albeit in an unwelcome direction.

Kane Starkiller wrote:

Why let Putin back to the center of power if it kept running under Medvedev? Unless the oligarch simply had no choice. Because he is popular? That in and of itself is a major leverage for Putin disregarding any other.

Medvedev was becoming unpopular, so the oligarchy decided to return Putin (and it was a masterful move, by the way).

Kane Starkiller wrote:

Not to mention that many oligarchs were imprisoned or had to flee Russia not the least of which is Berezovsky. If there was an oligarch who could control Putin he was it, and he had to hightail it to UK. Obviously Putin is not all powerful as was no leader in history. But any particular oligarch has far more to fear from Putin than vice versa.

Actually, oligarchs from a competing clan to the Putin clan have much to fear. But the Putin clan has little to fear and the relations inside the Putin clan are completely non-transparent. We just don't know if "oligarchs fear Putin" or vice-versa. When Deripaska demanded a handout during the crisis, Putin gave it to him.

Joined: 2002-07-03 11:51pmPosts: 14534Location: Land of the Mountain Fascists

Eh, even with the fraud, Putin is clearly the most popular politician in the country due to the fact that his propaganda machine has actually successfully convinced people that the opposition are pro-Western stooges seeking to destroy Russia at the behest of their NATO masters. I think the 45% or so he got in Moscow is actually an accurate representation of his levels of support.

Shouldn't be all that surprising, really. After all, the Italians kept electing Berlusconi, despite him not even trying to hide his dirty laundry.

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